GERARD, John II

The Gerards were a well established Norwich family, two members of which had represented the city as MPs before Henry VI’s reign, but John’s place in the family tree is not known.8 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 175-6. The MP had several namesakes, also from Norwich. Two were butchers (of whom one made his will in 1413 and the other was alive in the mid 15th cent.) and a third, admitted to the freedom of the city in 1431, was a ‘coryour’: Norwich city recs, ct. roll, 1413-21, NCR 1/17, m. 1; ‘Old Free bk.’, NCR 17c, ff. 47v, 104; R. Virgoe, ‘Norwich Taxation list of 1451’, Norf. Archaeology, xl. 149. There was also a John Gerard, ‘born of an English mother in Norwich’, to whom the Crown granted letters of denization in June 1441: CPR, 1436-41, p. 549. Early in his career he had connexions with Bishop’s Lynn, and in 1426 he and several burgesses from that borough were sued for trespass by John Wodehouse* and others. In the following year, the case came to pleadings in the Exchequer, where Wodehouse was one of the chamberlains. The plaintiffs alleged that in March that year Gerard and his associates had broken into their close and house at Lynn, from where they had taken goods worth £20. Gerard replied that John Wentworth (son of John Wentworth†) had disseised him of the house and goods in question and conveyed them to the plaintiffs. It would appear that the latter were Wentworth’s feoffees and that Gerard’s co-defendants, who denied taking part in any trespass, were acting in a similar capacity for him. Following these pleadings, the court awarded the plaintiffs an adjournment, but the plea roll in question records nothing more about the case. Gerard might have acquired his links with Lynn through his marriage, since it was with his wife that he conveyed four messuages and a plot of land there to John Parmenter* in 1428. Three years later, in association with John Heydon* and John Dam*, he was party to a settlement of lands at Hempstead and elsewhere in north-east Norfolk which was made on behalf of the Stodhagh family.9 E13/137, rot. 17; CP25(1)/169/186/47; 187/72.

Both Heydon and Dam were lawyers, and Gerard must have been another member of the legal profession. He appears not to have practised any trade, was usually styled a ‘gentleman’ and enjoyed sufficient status in Norfolk to be called upon to swear the oath to keep the peace administered throughout the country in 1434.10 CPR, 1429-36, p. 407; Norwich ct. roll, 1424-35, NCR 1/18, mm. 1, 13; CP40/727, rot. 388; C67/39, m. 15; CAD, iv. A7580; KB9/272/2. On at least one occasion he was called an ‘esquire’: NCR 1/17, m. 14. Most compellingly, John Gerard was an attorney in the court of common pleas for Sir William Oldhall* and Richard Boson during the early 1430s, in relation to a dispute between them and Pentney priory in west Norfolk,11 CP40/700, rots. 77-79. and an associate justice of that name sat with Judge William Paston during trials held at Norwich in March 1434 and September 1435.12 KB27/690, rot. 33d, rex rot. 9. In Mich. term 1435 an attorney called John Gerard (perhaps Judge Paston’s associate) acted for a Norf. man in the ct. of KB: KB27/698, rot. 90. Furthermore, the MP was of sufficient expertise to arbitrate in legal disputes on various occasions, including a quarrel of 1437 between the mayor and corporation of Norwich on the one hand and the abbot of Wendling on the other. Also in 1437, the corporation chose him and others to represent it in negotiations aimed at resolving its disputes with the prioress of Carrow.13 NCR 16d, f. 5v; C1/10/141; Norwich city recs., mayor’s ct. bk., 1425-1510, NCR 16a, p. 80.

By then Gerard had served as mayor of Norwich, having begun his career as an office-holder in the city in 1422, if not earlier. His first known office was that of one of the city’s sheriffs, although he was certainly an alderman (in which capacity he represented Wymer ward) by 1424,14 NCR 16d, ff. 3v, 9. some 12 years before his election as mayor. Shortly after taking up the shrievalty, he and his co-sheriff, Thomas Danyel, received a bond for £100 from Alexander Walton, a clerk from Caistor St. Edmund near Great Yarmouth. The reason for this transaction is unknown but the bond was the subject of litigation at Westminster between Walton and Gerard in the mid 1420s, after Danyel’s death. In pleadings of Trinity term 1425, Gerard claimed that he had entered into the bond under duress, while a prisoner of the sheriffs and their ‘coven’ at Great Ilford in Essex. Gerard responded by denying any such extortion, a plea upheld by a jury at Westminster over a year later. Following this verdict, Gerard received 40s. in damages and, in due course, payment in full of the £100 owing on the bond.15 CP40/658, rot. 321. Gerard also had a share in at least one office with jurisdiction outside the city, for in March 1440 he, Thomas Ellis† and two other burgesses obtained the farm of the subsidy and alnage of cloth in both Norfolk and Norwich for £31 p.a. The farm was supposed to run for seven years from Michaelmas 1439, but they surrendered it before this term had expired.16 CFR, xvii. 155, 281.

Gerard stood for election to the first of his six Parliaments shortly after concluding his term as sheriff. While attending the assembly of 1423 he and his fellow MP, Richard Moneslee*, also his companion in that of 1432, took the opportunity to take legal action against the City of London, in connexion with certain customs and tolls it had imposed on merchants from Norwich. Apart from their expenses for this suit, both men received 2s. per day while MPs. Gerard took like wages for the Parliament of 1425, although significantly more (40d. per day) for those of 1432 and 1435.17 Norwich city recs., chamberlains’ accts., 1384-1448, NCR 18a, ff. 144v, 146, 184, 213v. His wages while sitting in the Parliaments of 1442 and 1447 are unknown. In those two assemblies Gerard sat alongside Gregory Draper*, probably a good friend. During the early 1440s, he supported Draper in a quarrel with Nicholas Ovy, a lawyer employed by William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk.18 KB27/723, rot. 8; 724, rot. 41d. All save the last of Gerard’s Parliaments met at Westminster. He also went to Westminster on behalf of his city on several occasions in 1437 and 1438, riding there with other burgesses to seek the restoration of Norwich’s liberties and the good grace of the King and the lords of his council.19 NCR 16d, ff. 4v, 5v, 6v, 7v, 9.

The Crown had seized the liberties (finally restored in December 1439) in the wake of the disputed mayoral election of 1437. According to a certificate filed by members of a faction led by Thomas Wetherby*, Gerard and eight other aldermen had assembled a large mob to prevent them from attending the election, which had degenerated into a ‘riot’. Although it is impossible to take the certificate’s claims at face value, Gerard and other opponents of Wetherby appeared before the royal council six weeks afterwards, no doubt to explain their conduct.20 R.L. Storey, End of House of Lancaster, 220; KB9/229/1/105-6; PPC, v. 33. One of those caught up in the controversy was Gerard’s erstwhile associate, John Heydon, dismissed as recorder of Norwich shortly before the election, which the corporation had barred him from attending. Heydon, an ally of Wetherby and a follower of the earl of Suffolk, afterwards took legal action at Westminster against Gerard and other burgesses, alleging that they had assaulted and menaced him on the day of the election. In July 1439 a jury, which included Heydon’s associate Sir Thomas Tuddenham*, found them guilty of threatening behaviour – but not assault – and assessed the plaintiff’s damages at 400 marks. Gerard and his co-defendants responded by suing the jurors for awarding excessive damages, although they failed subsequently to pursue this action.21 KB27/715, rot. 6d. Later, after Suffolk’s downfall and death in 1449-50, a commission of oyer and terminer took presentments from several city juries against Heydon and other de la Pole men. Among these were allegations that they had maintained quarrels in the city and oppressed its inhabitants during the 1430s and 1440s. It was said that they had threatened the citizens with Suffolk’s ‘hevy lordschepp’ and that they had continued to oppress the city even after Gerard, Draper and others had tried to appease the peer by paying him 100 marks and Sir Thomas Tuddenham £20.22 P. Maddern, Violence and Social Order, 190-1; CP40/712, rot. 124; KB9/272/2-5; Norwich city recs., complaint of city against Tuddenham, Heydon and others, 1434-5, NCR 9c/2. The dispute of 1437 was not the first time that Gerard and Wetherby had found themselves at odds, since they had also been on opposite sides during the equally controversial mayoral election of 1433.23 It is unlikely that the two men had become opponents much before 1433, since in Nov. 1429 Gerard and several other future opponents of Wetherby were associated with the latter in a conveyance of property in the city: Norwich city recs., ‘Liber Albus’, NCR 17a, f. 13v. At that election Wetherby, then the outgoing mayor, had tried to impose his own candidate, William Grey, on the electors, even though the citizens had nominated Richard Purdance† (eventually the successful candidate) and Gerard for the office. Later, in 1435, the King had taken recognizances of £100 from the MP and other Norwich citizens from both sides of the divide, to secure their appearance in Chancery, among them Gerard’s former associate in the Commons, Richard Moneslee, who had sided with Wetherby.24 B.R. McRee, ‘Peace Making and its Limits in Late Med. Norwich’, EHR, cix. 854-6; Maddern, 184-6; CPR, 1429-35, pp. 364-5. The reason for the summons is unrecorded, but it is likely that the bitter animosity between Wetherby and his opponents had caused the government concern.

Gerard and Wetherby were still at odds in the early 1440s, when a Norwich jury indicted five of Wetherby’s servants. According to the indictment, in October 1441 these servants and some 40 others, acting at the behest of Wetherby and the prior of Norwich, had assaulted and imprisoned the mayor, William Ashwell*, and several other citizens, including Gerard. Already that year the prior, with whom the city was engaged in a long-running jurisdictional dispute, and who had allied himself with Wetherby and the de la Pole affinity, had begun legal proceedings against Ashwell, Gerard and other aldermen.25 Norwich city recs., presentments taken by j.p.s, 1440-1, NCR 8a/10, m. 1; Storey, 221; KB9/240/26-27. Gerard was a defendant in another suit alleging assault in 1442. The plaintiff was William ‘Gery’, possibly a scribal error for Wetherby’s ally, William Grey: CP40/727, rot. 388. Gerard was embroiled in yet more controversy in early 1443. In January that year, there were disturbances directed against Norwich priory, and he was among a number of aldermen indicted for plotting an insurrection several weeks later. The Crown reacted to the disturbances, subsequently known as ‘Gladman’s Insurrection’, by confiscating the city’s liberties for a second time and appointing Sir John Clifton as its governor. Despite his indictment, Gerard cannot have incurred much disgrace. Although the government dismissed him as a j.p., he was a member of the deputation which Clifton sent to Windsor to petition the King on the city’s behalf only weeks after the trouble, and on one occasion in 1445-6 he was among those entrusted with governing Norwich during the governor’s temporary absence. He was reappointed a j.p. in August 1446, more than a year before the liberties were restored, and in the following November he obtained a royal pardon. This referred to him as an alderman, making it unlikely that he was deprived of the rank, even for a short time.26 KB9/84/1/3; 84/2/49; Recs. Norwich ed. Hudson and Tingey, ii. 70; C67/39, m. 15.

By that date, Gerard had entered the last few years of his life, although he appears to have remained active until his death. In the following month he made a release of lands at Buckenham Ferry, Carleton and elsewhere in the Norfolk hundred of Loddon to a group of feoffees, probably in the capacity as a trustee of Sir Thomas Kerdiston*, who had died at Norwich the previous summer. Ironically, one of Kerdiston’s heirs was Alice de la Pole, marchioness of Suffolk, and among those to whom Gerard was obliged to make the release was William Prentys, who had allegedly helped Heydon to oppress the city a few years earlier.27 CAD, iv. A7580; F. Blomefield, Norf. iv. 349; Norf. RO, Norwich consist. ct. Reg. Wylbey, f. 137; C139/143/31; NCR 9c/2; KB9/272/3. Gerard was still alive in February 1451 when his real property was valued at £10 p.a. for the purposes of a royal tax, but he had died by the following 27 Aug. when his wife drew up her will, asking to be buried near his tomb in the church of St. Gregory, Norwich.28 Virgoe, 150; Reg. Stafford, ff. 191v-192. She left a messuage in the city, a property that had once belonged to Thomas Gerard (perhaps the MP’s father),29 It is not possible to establish whether Thomas was the Norwich MP of the late 14th and early 15th cents. to her servant, Robert Horslee, while ordering her executors to sell the rest of her husband’s holdings in Norwich (situated in the parishes of St. Giles, St. Gregory, St. Swithin and St. Margaret) and elsewhere in Norfolk. These directions suggest that the couple had not left any surviving children.